Against the Giants: Liberation of Geoff

Skittering Maw Dies Quickly!

Session 78

After spending an uneventful night in the second watchtower, the party continue to follow the twisting passage, the two scouts– Corvin and Sidni– in front, invisible and bestowed with infravision, the others following about ten minutes behind. After two hours they reach a junction: do they go straight on, or take the right-hand passage? They turn right, and five hours of trekking later they arrive at a small cavern, with the sound of water rippling and washing up against stone.

The scouts enter the cavern to explore, spotting a white ape on guard, a pool of water with something moving beneath the surface, but little else with their limited vision. The others soon reach the entrance, and the scouts report in: the light from their torches alerts an ape, who howls and alarm but is immediately shot down by one of Corvin’s poisoned arrows; but it is too late, others have been alerted and out of the darkness morlocks and white apes advance with crude clubs and wicked claws.

Corvin proves himself just as capable with his normal bow, and kills three of the enemy and wounds another as they advanced, and battle is joined as the others move in. Halmary whacks the wounded ape, which then falls to the swinging axe of Xellos. Phildor steps up and unleashes a flurry of fiery magic missiles, droppinga morlock and wounding others. Ordoreth imitates the mage, his own magic missiles dropping another morlock and burning the fur off an ape.

Then out of the pool of water a monstrous hybrid– a Skittering Maw, a cross between a shark and a giant centipede– bursts forth, attacking Mim with a ferocious bite. It manages to bite Mim again, as Sidni drives a spear in its side; and then, as it the way with anything even remotely dangerous, the maw is smacked down by Phildor’s magic and Xellos’ axe.

Xellos follows through with the momentum of his killing blow, cleaving two morlocks and beheading an ape, sucking out its life-force as he does so.

The final morlocks, and the last of the enemies in the cavern, fall to more of Ordoreth’s magic, and the last are cut down by Ungrid’s flying hammer: it blasts through their chests, killing them instantly.

As the dust settles, wounds are dealt with and the loot from the island in the middle of the pool if searched and taken: gold, gems, and a magic shield.

They camp in the cavern to sleep, posting guards. The ‘night’ passes by, and the next ’day’– no one is quite sure what time it is– they walk back to the main passage, and continue onwards, their scouts once more in front and hidden from sight…